1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an airbag device for protecting an occupant such as a driver and a passenger in a vehicle against an impact due to a side collision, the vehicle having seats disposed apart in a vehicle width direction.
2. Related Art
A method has been widely used in which an airbag device provided in a vehicle is activated to reduce an impact to an occupant when a collision of the vehicle occurs. A conventional airbag device is disposed in a steering wheel provided forward of the driver's seat or in an instrument panel provided forward of a front passenger seat so that forward movement of an occupant facing the airbag device is restrained. Thus, an impact to an occupant at the time of a head-on collision of a vehicle is reduced and the occupant may be protected from the head-on collision.
In recent years, a device has been developed that protects an occupant using an airbag device even at the time of a side collision of a vehicle. For example, what is called a side airbag device inflates between the side (door) of a vehicle body and an occupant to protect the occupant. Thus, the occupant is protected against a direct impact in a side collision of a vehicle as well as prevented from colliding with the inner side of the vehicle.
Such a conventional side airbag device is unable to restrain inward movement of the occupant in a vehicle width direction. For this reason, when a side collision of a vehicle occurs, the occupants on the driver's seat and the adjacent front passenger seat may collide with each other, or an occupant may collide with the backrest of the adjacent seat. In order to address such problems, an airbag device described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2010-115947 allows an airbag to inflate upward, the airbag being housed in a center console provided between the driver's seat and the adjacent front passenger seat. Thus, the airbag deploys between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat, thereby making it possible to prevent collision between a driver on the driver's seat and a passenger on the front passenger seat. When a passenger is on the front passenger seat, the airbag is supported by the passenger in the vehicle width direction. On the other hand, when a passenger is not on the front passenger seat, the airbag fills a space over the front passenger seat, the space facing the driver on the driver's seat, and the airbag is supported by the door near the front passenger seat. Thus, the inflated airbag is able to provide a reaction force for receiving an impact force in the vehicle width direction, and movement of the driver on the driver's seat toward the front passenger seat may be efficiently restrained.
In the case where the driver's seat and the front passenger seat are disposed apart from each other, the positions of both seats are independently adjustable in a fore-and-aft direction of the vehicle and the angle of a backrest of each seat is also independently adjustable. For this reason, with the airbag device described in JP-A No. 2010-115947, even when a passenger is on the front passenger seat, the inflated airbag may not come into contact with the passenger on the front passenger seat r and may not be supported in the vehicle width direction.
In addition, in the case where the airbag housed in the center console inflates with small articles and/or drink placed on the center console, those small articles on the center console are bounded up, thereby causing danger. Consequently, small articles and/or drink cannot be placed on the center console, and thus the center console may not be effectively used in normal conditions.